TAVR Implant Count Reaches 100 at Birmingham Hospital

UAB is home to Alabama’s largest and oldest heart valve disease treatment program and is one of just a few in the state trained to offer the Edwards Lifesciences TAVR — the only transcatheter aortic valve replacement therapy approved for commercial use in the United States. UAB performs more valve procedures annually than anyone in the state and has since the inception of its program.

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UAB in the News

With the grant funds, UAB has established the Innovate Birmingham Regional Workforce Partnership, which aims to begin job training for young adults in the spring of 2017. The Workforce Partnership will focus on workers aged 17-26 for 925 "high-paying, high-demand" jobs.

Cannabidiol is likely to interact with more anti-epileptic agents than just clobazam, researchers reported. In an open-label study of 81 adult and pediatric patients, the cannabis derivative also showed drug-drug interactions with topiramate and rufinamide, Tyler Gaston, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues reported at the American Epilepsy Society meeting.

Newly released research funding data from the National Science Foundation shows the University of Alabama at Birmingham ranked No. 18 nationally among public universities and No. 34 overall in federally financed research in 2015, with more than $328.5 million in spending.

UAB researchers presented eleven abstracts, or research findings, at the meeting. A key finding was that CBD provided a significant reduction in frequency of seizures for a majority of the patients in the study, and that approximately two-thirds of patients saw a greater than 50 percent reduction in severity.

Through the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Gift of Sight program, students from the School of Optometry and UAB eye doctors provide complimentary eye care. Hogan is among the more than 400 Jefferson County residents receiving full exams and free glasses from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3.

UAB is ranked 18th among public universities and 34th overall in federal research dollars for 2015. According to UAB, the school last year recorded more than $328 million in federally financed expenditures and $516 in overall research expenditures.

The greatest excitement at the moment surrounds the new class of checkpoint inhibitors, including PD-1 and CTLA-4 inhibitors. "Your body has a natural response of putting the brakes on the immune system," says Arend. "These drugs take those brakes off."

Immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment options in oncology, neurology, and many infectious diseases and now there is fresh hope that the same method could be used to treat or even functionally cure HIV, according to new research.

Testing the ability of early exposure to hinder later reactions to allergens, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers used another common pest, mice, to gauge resistance to cockroach-induced asthma.

With backing from the school’s administration and the Barnes & Noble College operated bookstore, which is located within the University’s new student center, Gang Green is sure to get a lot of support, as well as amazing gear.

“Thus, these findings support ongoing calls for community development policies, urban planning, and zoning and transportation policies that address neighborhood socioeconomic contexts to improve residential environments in order to positively impact the health of the community members.”

Researchers in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Pediatrics found that Alabama parents living in suburban areas use cellphones in the speaker mode, read and send text messages, and surf the web slightly more often than parents in rural areas.

For nine years, Kirklin served as the director of education and outreach for UAB’s Alys Stephens Center, helping extend the center’s educational programs to underserved schools, communities and seniors throughout the Birmingham area.

You Can't Take It With You: The play depicts two families, one strictly not traditional and the other strictly nonconforming, and the conflict that arises between the two when a daughter of one brings her fiancé and his wealthy Wall Street family to dinner.

Just 16 months after a GE Signa PET/MR scanner was installed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for research use, the facility has announced it will begin using the tool to diagnose and examine its clinical patient population.

Older adults have high incidence of cardiovascular risk factors, with increased incidence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and dyslipidemia for blacks, according to a study published online Sept. 26 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

“Very early on in this disease — at a time when outside a study like ours the majority of people would not have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — patients appear to be losing lung function,” Mark T. Dransfield, MD, lead researcher and medical director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Lung Center said.

A regional hub of universities that includes the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Alabama recently scored a major grant intended to support the universities' participation in a National Science Foundation initiative.

Alys Stephens Center Executive Director Anna Thompson says fine arts programming should serve both the University of Alabama at Birmingham students and faculty while acting as a cultural bridge for the community.

University of Alabama at Birmingham investigators and their colleagues found that the development of risk factors including hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol remains high in adults over age 45, even extending up to ages over 75 years.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows adding the dose of 500 milligrams of azithromycin during a C-section also significantly decreases the use of health care resources, including readmissions, emergency room visits and clinic visits.

In Alabama, where cancer rates have historically been among the worst in the nation, Edward Partridge, M.D., has spent more than four decades treating women who have been devastated by ovarian and other gynecological cancers.

As far as records show, women have always outlived men. According to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, this is true for every year for all 38 countries included in the Human Mortality Database, which dates back to 1751.